With artists stuck at home these days struggling to make sense of a radically new normal, many are turning to the one thing you can do when everything else is on hold:  create. We've had a wonderful smorgasbord of new songs and videos coming out over the past three months – but so far, few artists have tried to create work about the pandemic, and some of the efforts I've seen to date have felt a bit forced. Let's face it, it's very hard to process something when you're still wildly in the thick of it. But Sultans of String strike just the right chord with this video for their song "I'm Free" featuring Waleed Abdulhamid from their latest album Refuge. The concept is simple and the format well-broken-in:  they asked friends and fans all over the world to hold up signs showing what they miss most during lockdown.

READ THE FULL Roots Music Canada ARTICLE & WATCH THE VIDEO

Bandon Community Radio Producer Chip Cassin explores some of KBOG's favorite recording artists with in-depth interviews on a personal level and airs them, along with their new music, on his show Deep Dive, Sundays at 1pm PST. Michael Whalen is a two-time Emmy® Award winning composer and music supervisor (with 8 nominations) who has worked in advertising, television, film and video games for over 30 years. Some of his best-known work: "Veronika Decides to Die" (2014), "What the Bleep Do You Know?", "As The World Turns", themes for HBO, CBS News, ABC News' "Good Morning America", "The Oprah Winfrey Show", dozens of specials for PBS, National Geographic, Discovery, The BBC, NHK and the History Channel and television films for Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel. Michael is also an internationally known recording artist with 32 solo and soundtrack recordings to his credit. Well-known for his beautiful and thematic music, he performs when time allows. He has also produced and executive produced over 100 recordings for other artists. His work as a executive producer resulted in a Grammy Nomination in 2000. Sacred Spaces is an epic recording nearly 10 years in the making.  "I have been pursuing a spiritual ‘awakening' for most of my adult life.  Over the past decade, I realized that I am 100 percent responsible for whatever my relationship with a ‘higher being' might be," says Whalen.  Filled with sonic landscapes built from hundreds of layers of sound, "Sacred Spaces" is Michael's tour-de-force electronic project, which seamlessly blends his natural gift for melody with fresh textures and percolating rhythms. Deeply inspired by Michael's film and TV work and his love for progressive rock, "Sacred Spaces" is the ambient recording of the year. Enjoy Chip's fascinating deep dive with Michael, as he is one of those rare musicians that film directors will go to in order make a scene in a movie or tv show strike you in ways you may not even be aware of, by using layers of music to deliver a the deeper message in the scene. There are only a few in the world that can do what Michael does through music, and do it well. He is of a rare breed. Have a listen to a few tracks from Sacred Spaces below and then head to Michael Whalen.com to learn more, and you can find him on Spotify and Apple Music. Listen to Michael Whalen on the 97.9KBOG: Bandon OR - Deep Dive with Chip Cassin

Bandon Community Radio Producer Chip Cassin explores some of KBOG's favorite recording artists with in-depth interviews on a personal level and airs them, along with their new music, on his show Deep Dive, Sundays at 1pm PST. Multi award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter and pianist Laila Biali has toured with Chris Botti, Paula Cole, Suzanne Vega and Sting. She has headlined festivals and venues spanning five continents including Carnegie Hall. Her accolades include a 2019 JUNO Award for "Vocal Jazz Album of the Year", "SOCAN Composer of the Year" and "Keyboardist of the Year" at Canada's National Jazz Awards, a JUNO nomination for her studio recording Tracing Light, and a spot on DownBeat Magazine's "Best Albums of the Year" list for her follow-up Live in Concert. In 2015, Laila released her first album of entirely original music, House of Many Rooms – an indie-pop project featuring a star-studded lineup including the vocalist Lisa Fischer, who is featured in the Academy Award-winning documentary 20 Feet From Stardom. Check out Chip's Interview on 97.9KBOG: Bandon Oregon - interview with one of Canada's foremost Jazz pianists & vocalists along with a few tracks from her LP "Out Of Dust" below. In addition to being a musician and an all-around great person, you can catch Laila streaming as she hosts CBC Radio 2's weekly Saturday Night Jazz radio show, which has consistently ranked as that network's most streamed program. You can find the stream at CBC Radio 2 Saturday Night Jazz (from the US). Then head to Laila Biali to find out more, get tour dates and grab your copy!

Liberate Instrumental Music! The history of western music is one of the instrumental living in harmony (ahem) with the vocal. A Beethoven symphony, a Verdi opera. Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit, Duke Ellington's Isfahan. The Beatles' Let It Be, Herbie Hancock's Watermelon Man. But recently, instrumental music has gone missing. Become nearly invisible. Inaudible. In old media. In new. Words and music, yes. Music alone, no.  Instrumental music must be restored to culture's apex. We need an Instrumental Music Liberation Front. SymphRONica to the rescue. This record is the opening salvo. A journey through the great fountainheads of the instrumental. Jazz meets classical musics (emphasis on the ‘s': European, Québecois, Sepahrdic, Manouche). Let musical freedom ring! Let Instrumental Music be Liberated! LISTEN TO THE JazzCast SEGMENT, attached

Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Myer and Chris Thile, each highly accomplished musicians in their own right, unite in their eagerly anticipated follow up album to Grammy Award winning The Goat Rodeo Sessions.  "Goat Rodeo" is an expression meaning a chaotic situation, one in which everything has to go right by skill or luck, or everything will be thrown off course. It's an appropriate title for the complexity of Not Our First Goat Rodeo. "Every Note A Pearl" shows this with dissonant notes in which the strings slide into new keys. In less skilled hands, this would be a mistake, but here it's a testament to the group's skill. It takes a good musician to sing in the wrong key on purpose, but it takes a great one to make the "wrong" key right.   Not Our First Goat Rodeo is a delicate ecosystem of sound. Like most ecosystems, any little change could bring the whole thing down, but here it's perfectly balanced. At the climax of "Scarcely Cricket" and "Not for Lack of Trying," each instrument takes on a life of its own. Rather than one sticking out and the rest supporting, they often each take their own stage, in a cacophony of interlocking chaos. A person can listen to the same track multiple times and get totally different impressions as the ear picks up new parts each time. It's the sonic equivalent of a forest path that demands multiple explorations to be fully known.  READ THE FULL mxdwn.com REVIEW

Violin virtuoso Niv Ashkenazi joins FM91: Toledo OH to talk about Violins of Hope, an artistic and educational project composed of instruments that were owned by Jewish musicians before and during the Holocaust. With his fellow Juilliard graduate, pianist Matthew Graybil, Niv has released the first solo album to be recorded on one of these instruments. LISTEN TO THE SEGMENT

Since bursting on the scene as a child prodigy, Benjamin Grosvenor has established himself as the most exciting and accomplished British pianist of his generation. Remarkably mature for his 27 years, he has five albums under his belt since being the youngest pianist to sign with Decca in 2011. His latest release, the two Chopin concertos, marks his first orchestral outing since his 2012 Rhapsody In Blue album which featured Saint-Saens' second and Ravel's G major concertos as well as George Gershwin's showstopper. Opinion has always been divided over Chopin's ability as an orchestrator. There are some who think his scores for the two piano concertos, both written when he was 20 and still living in Poland, are boring and unadventurous. Others believe he got the job done, albeit unspectacularly, and that the instrumentalists complement the soloist. Whichever camp the listener falls into, there is no doubting that the piano writing is wonderful and memorable, and under the fingers of Grosvenor backed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra the two concertos are glittering and achingly lovely, fully-formed masterpieces. His technique shows great clarity and technical ease. His touch is light and there is an innate artistry, taste and thoughtfulness in his playing. Still only 27, there is no telling what new heights he may scale. This is certainly a beautiful and impressive survey of Chopin's two masterworks. READ THE FULL LIMELIGHT REVIEW